Content
- The different types of ginger family
- Basic properties of ginger
- The type of tea used for tea and spice purposes
- The propagation of tubers
- Ginger species for use in the kitchen
- Ginger as a flowering plant
- Tips & Tricks
The different types of ginger family
In Germany, ginger has established itself as a tea base or as a spice in the last ten years or so. Besides the commercially available ginger rolls, there are many other plant varieties that also belong to the ginger family.
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The different types of ginger are almost always herbaceous plants, whose most important part is for a harvest below the earth's surface. For example, ginger, which grows only seasonally in our latitudes, stores its energy reserves in a succulent tuber to be able to drive out again after hibernation. Since all ginger species come from tropical latitudes without exception, the cultivation of ginger is only possible in a bucket or under glass.
The type of tea used for tea and spice purposes
The commercially available tubers of the ginger are usually the subterranean plant constituents of the subfamily Zingiberoideae. This in turn includes more than 1200 different varieties, including:
The propagation of tubers
The ginger plants of the subfamily Zingiberoideae are generally not propagated from seeds. Rather, some of the rhizome-like tubers are stored after harvest and overwintered in a cool and dry basement room. From at least cubes of cubes large parts of the tubers then new plants can be pulled in the spring.
Ginger species for use in the kitchen
For consumption, many types of ginger rolls are suitable. For example, the variety Alpinia galanga is also known as Thai ginger. The Chinese ginger of the variety Boesenbergia rotundia is sometimes also traded under the name Fingerwort. The stem of Cautleya spicata is eaten as a vegetable in Asia, but the plant is also said to have medicinal effects.
Ginger as a flowering plant
The over 1000 different subspecies of the ginger family are not only valuable as part of Asian cuisine. Many ginger varieties also produce amazingly large and exotic flower formations. These ginger species can theoretically be propagated by seeds, but the summer season in this country is usually too short for a ripening of the seeds.
Tips & Tricks
The curry spice is actually not an individual spice but a spice mixture. An essential component of this is turmeric, which is obtained from the root tuber of a ginger species.
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